


deep, deep woe

by bastaerd



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Heavy Angst, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, M/M, [A Little Fall of Rain playing in the background], i think?????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23443894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastaerd/pseuds/bastaerd
Summary: “It’s not your fault,” Jaskier tells him. A pause; a wet, rattling breath. His hair sticks to his forehead and tickles his eyes. “Do you hear me, you bull-headed Witcher? Not your fault.”At that, Geralt shakes his head.“You got-” he begins, and cuts himself off, his mouth in the shape of the word “killed.” “You’re hurt,” he tries again. “If I’d been here this wouldn’t have happened.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 17
Kudos: 139





	deep, deep woe

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i don't know fuck or shit about the witcher, not the books or the games or the show. i'm running purely off of memes my friend sends me.  
> title is from Lullaby of Woe.  
> p.s.- i'm aware that witchers can't cry. this fic is congruous with that fact.

Rain is the worst fucking thing. For as much of a rich vein of metaphor and imagery it is, it’s miserable to be in the middle with it. And with a lute, well, then it gets even more complicated. There’s no bigger pain in Jaskier’s ass than having to tune and re-tune the strings for every change in the weather, each fluctuation of temperature and humidity, but he does so with little outward complaint because music is his life’s joy. He compares it, on occasion, to a parent with their child; the child might do stupid things like make messes and act unruly in public, and the parent deals with them with patience and affection, caring for them without condition or resentment.

That’s what he’s heard, at least.

The blow comes, ironically, as he’s tending to the instrument, rubbing rosin onto the strings and making sure they’re in fine condition after months of travel. One moment, he’s sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, humming a droning note as he plucks one string at a time, and then next, the lute and the little puck of rosin are out of his hands, thrown onto the grass with him. He feels a glowing numbness in between his shoulder-blades, and thinks to himself, _Oh, fuck._ He turns his head so that his nose is no longer pressed into the dirt, and gets a glimpse of whoever had felled him.

“Can’t be right,” he says to himself, brow furrowing in both pain and confusion as he blinks at him. At first, he’s worried that blood loss has already gotten to him and has started to muddle his mind, as he watches a stage actor from the last town over brandishing a dagger. The actor smiles down at him, his mouth stretching a little too wide, his teeth a little too defined and his eyes matte like a doll’s.

It’s then that he remembers their current hunt, and puts two and two together. A sharp laugh comes out of him, along with an unhealthy mouthful of blood. What kind of luck must he have, to find the doppler while Geralt’s gone looking. He’s taken Roach, too, so there goes any hope of warning or escape, if Jaskier can manage to make it through to the other side of this. It’s tough to say, with what may be a dagger in his back.

The second reunites with the first. Jaskier’s mouth opens wide enough to gasp, and then he’s away.

When he next opens his eyes who-knows-how-long later, he’s astonished. Can’t remember why, at first, but the searing sting of two blades in his back doesn’t leave him in suspense for long. Groaning, he tries to push himself up and off of the ground, but his arms are weak and even the smallest twinge of muscle sends lightning, nibbling rats, all manner of awful sensation through his chest and shoulders. He imagines that at least one of the wounds may be through-and-through, if he can get himself into a position to see for sure; he’s not sure if he wants to. Still, he tries, damn it all.

“Jaskier!”

A shout comes from miles away. Jaskier blinks clouds out of his eyes.

“Jaskier- Jaskier, fuck.”

“I’m not a dog, you need to ask me nicely,” Jaskier replies, only to heave another groan as a strong arm pulls him onto his side. Geralt’s face hovers over him, eyebrows nearly touching, eyes wide, looking furious and confused and if it’s not the loveliest sight he’s ever seen in his life…

He might’ve been wrong, about music being his life’s joy. At any rate, it rings hollow when there’s no love behind the song.

“Jaskier,” says Geralt for the third time. Jaskier feels his hand hesitate against him, where it’s gripping his side to keep him from tilting one way or the other and risking driving the daggers in deeper. Finally, he gets his other arm underneath him, under his shoulder, and drags him until he’s firmly in Geralt’s lap. One arm is still behind and around his shoulders, safely out of the way of the daggers, though the ache radiates from them like a fever, and the other arm can’t seem to figure out where to go. It settles, after a while, on Jaskier’s waist, holding him. Cradling him, even, if Witchers could cradle anyone. The technicalities that differentiate it from just bare holding would have precluded him from it, if Jaskier didn’t know him better than possibly anyone else either of them had met. Those gold eyes go rosy around the lids.

“Oh,” Jaskier breathes, and despite it all, he feels a little smile come to his lips. The warmth of blood dribbles from his mouth, down his chin, staining his shirt beyond help if it hadn’t already been ruined. “Don’t you go upsetting yourself for my sake. You’re grumpy enough as it is.”

“Shut up,” Geralt tells him, and that hand goes around to his back, meeting the other one. “Shut the fuck up.”

He feels blindly, but with infinite care, around the daggers, where their blades sank into Jaskier’s body. There’s no way to staunch the bleeding like this, and removing them would only kill him faster. Slowly, the hand stops its fumbling, and Geralt squares his jaw, looking indignant.

Seeing the look on his face, Jaskier calms.

“Hey,” he says, a breath on the breeze. “Look at me. Stop gnashing your teeth like some beast, anyone who comes around’ll think you’ve gone feral.”

Geralt looks ready to open his mouth and protest, and Jaskier feels his hand, the one that’s not holding him up, clenching and unclenching in the sodden material of his shirt. It retreats, red palm turning clean again under the deluge. How poetic, Jaskier thinks, that his blood won’t stain Geralt’s hands. Now, if only there was a way to convince him.

“It’s not your fault,” he tells him. A pause; a wet, rattling breath. His hair sticks to his forehead and tickles his eyes. “Do you hear me, you bull-headed Witcher? Not your fault.”

At that, Geralt shakes his head. Any other day, Jaskier might have drawn a comparison between him and a dog shaking itself dry.

“You got-” he begins, and cuts himself off, his mouth in the shape of the word “killed.” “You’re hurt,” he tries again. “If I’d been here this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Maybe,” Jaskier says. “But then again, maybe not. You know me. Always stepping in places I shouldn’t.”

“Don’t say that.”

There’s a sharp bite to Geralt’s voice, a white wolf’s fangs.

“Don’t say that like you’re meant to die,” he says, and clutches him closer. It would hurt now, if anything hurt at all. But the world has dissolved to just a strange sense of pressure on an endless grey plane. Pressure, grey, and Geralt. His eyes shine like pyrite.

“The best ballads always end in death,” Jaskier says, mouth quirking wryly. “Wouldn’t be very memorable songs if there was anything else to remember ‘em by.”

Geralt pushes his hair from his face.

“You’re not a ballad,” he says softly.

“Well, if anyone bothers to write me into one, I will be.”

That, at least, brings something to Geralt’s face. It isn’t a smile in any sense, but it’s humor, tempered by grief. There’s something more underneath that, too, the same thing that’s been cropping up more and more when Geralt looks his way. It tells Jaskier that Geralt wants to hold onto him for as long as he can, and then some.

“I’m shit at words,” Geralt tells him, and Jaskier makes a strangled sound that might as well be a laugh.

“‘Course you are,” he agrees, “but you know what they say about practice.”

Geralt makes a sound of acknowledgement. Then, he bows his head and presses the thin line of his lips against Jaskier’s forehead. The hand that had traveled from his waist to his back and back again lifts itself to the back of his head, clasping the two of them in that position like they’re locked that way. After that, Geralt takes in a deep breath against Jaskier’s hairline, and then lets it out just as deliberately. Jaskier can feel the rain dripping down his forehead.

“I’ve always,” he starts. He’s cut off by more pain, more blood, more reminders that he’s overstaying his welcome, but when it passes, those arms are still around him, as if he will only be allowed to die when they let go. “I’ve always entertained the idea of being sung off to death,” he finally croaks out through a throat gone ragged. “But… but I’m afraid I’ll be quite out of tune.”

“I can’t sing,” Geralt says. He’s completely correct. But his voice is the one Jaskier wants, above any, to carry him off. It must read plainly in his words or in his tone, because Geralt kisses his forehead again and eases him back.

“When a humble bard,” he begins,

“Graced a ride along

With Geralt of Rivia

Along came this song.”

It’s far from perfect. Geralt’s voice has always held a gravelly quality, like running on a dirt path, and carries over to his singing voice, as well. His range is about three notes wide, all of them horrendously flat, and his articulation is about what Jaskier had expected. And he’s never heard another voice so beautiful in his whole too-short life. He smiles, his eyelids dipping dangerously, and takes one last look into Geralt’s blue eyes.

All at once, everything seems to change. White hair shortens itself, retreating and darkening until it’s brown and well-groomed. Black clothing shines itself into a robins’ egg doublet and trousers over an embroidered shirt, free of blood, its only stains the dirt of travel.

“What,” Jaskier mouths. His voice dies in his throat.

The rough voice turns well-trained and sweet. Strong arms go thin, lowering him down onto his side on the muddy ground, and he can only watch as his double stands. Goes to his dropped lute and rosin, and picks them up. Rain still falls around them.

The doppler sits on the trunk of the fallen tree, singing and strumming the lute long after Jaskier has finished breathing.


End file.
